


Always

by kuro



Category: Marvel
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-13
Updated: 2014-06-13
Packaged: 2018-02-04 13:38:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1781032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuro/pseuds/kuro
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony smiled at him, a trail of blood slowly trickling out of the corner of his mouth. His shaking hand reached out to Steve, but Steve couldn’t move. All he could do was stare down at Tony’s beaten up body, horrified.</p>
<p>“For you, Steve,” Tony whispered. “Always for you.”</p>
<p>[This is a fix-it for <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1764209">Forever</a>.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	Always

**Author's Note:**

  * For [inukagome15](https://archiveofourown.org/users/inukagome15/gifts).



> So, this happened because inukagome15 bugged me about a fix-it for my very sad fic Forever. Since I'm not a devil, I decided to write an alternate ending. :)

Tony smiled at him, a trail of blood slowly trickling out of the corner of his mouth. His shaking hand reached out to Steve, but Steve couldn’t move. All he could do was stare down at Tony’s beaten up body, horrified.

“For you, Steve,” Tony whispered. “Always for you.”

Steve woke up with a start, bathed in sweat and breathing heavily, hand unconsciously reaching out for the Tony in his dreams.

The same dream, every night, making sure that he never forgot and the pain never became less.

He took deep, slow breaths, trying to calm down his hammering heart.

One night.

One night without seeing Tony die in his dreams, that was all he wanted. A wish he had been denied ever since it had happened.

Steve swung his legs over the edge of the bed, getting up to get himself a glass water. Then he froze.

The door in this room was on the wrong side of the bed.

This… _where_ was he?

Something about this place was terrifyingly familiar, but he couldn’t pin it down. Had he been here before? It felt like a distant memory, a place he had visited a very long time ago.

He carefully opened the door and peeked out into the hallway. Everything was quiet, no movements and no light. Silently, he slipped out of the room.

We wandered past closed doors, still trying to match this place with one of his memories. He turned around a corner, and… there, a door was left ajar, a small stripe of light spilling over the floor of the hallway.

His heartbeat started to pick up, but he couldn’t help but sneak closer, peeking through the gap. It seemed to be a kitchen. Huh. At least is wasn’t a torture chamber.

He carefully pushed the door open. Strange. He definitely knew this place, he had been here before. He had… he sucked in a breath.

The figure standing in front of the coffee machine at the counter startled and whirled around.

_Tony._

“Steve!” Tony cried. “You surprised me! And.. oh my god, Steve, you’re awake!”

Tony crossed the room in two quick steps, grabbing Steve’s arms and looking into his face with a searching expression.

“Steve, are you okay?” Tony asked. “You don’t look good, and you haven’t woken up and we were all worried and why are you looking like that, my god, please don’t faint on me okay, Steve, we need to get you checked up and make sure that you’re really okay…”

Tony was babbling. And standing right in front of him. And touching him. This couldn’t be real. Was he still dreaming? Was this some kind of elaborate joke? Steve stared down at Tony, trying to figure out what was happening.

“Steve?” Tony called his name, now definitely sounding very worried. “Steve, are you okay? Please Steve, _talk to me_.”

Steve didn’t know what to do. This couldn’t possibly be real.

But.

But.

Tony.

He reached out slowly and touched Tony’s cheek. It felt warm, real, a little bristly from the five-o’clock-shadow he was sporting. Tony looked at him with worry in his eyes. Steve remembered. He never used to touch Tony like that. He had never been this gentle with him.

But that didn’t matter any longer. Even if it was a dream, this was what he had wished. One more chance. Once more seeing Tony, whole and alive.

He left his hand slide down from Tony’s cheek to his neck, pulling Tony in and burying his nose in Tony’s dark, tousled hair. His other hand rose and settled around Tony’s waist.

He was warm, breathing, alive. Smelling exactly like Tony smelled after he had been down in the workshop.

“Steve?” came Tony’s voice from where he was half smashed against Steve’s chest. “Are you okay?”

“I am,” Steve said with a faint smile.

Then he broke down and cried.

* * *

 

“That didn’t do much to convince me that you’re okay, Steve,” Tony commented once Steve had calmed down a bit.

“Mhm,” Steve hummed absent-mindedly, petting Tony’s hair and making sure the hair would be a complete and utter mess once he was done with it. It calmed him down a little. He was sweating and his heart was in his mouth. Tony was here now, this was his chance, and he was too nervous to say anything.

So many years, and he was still a coward.

He opened his mouth.

“Seriously Steve, are you mind-controlled or something? You’re kind of creeping me out here. And that after you didn’t wake up for ten days,” Tony interrupted him. His words sounded worried, but they weren’t very convincing since he had been continuously stroking Steve’s back ever since Steve had started ~~bawling~~ crying.

“I don’t think I’m mind-controlled,” Steve finally managed to find his voice (a tiny little bit relieved his attempt to confess had gotten interrupted). “But I don’t remember being asleep for ten days. I also don’t remember you being alive, so there might something funky be going on.”

Tony lifted his head abruptly.

“Check-up. Now,” he commanded, already pulling Steve with him.

* * *

 

The check-up caused a flurry of activity, and after a short while, he was surrounded by Tony, Reed Richards, Hank McCoy, Bruce and several other people who were all poking and prodding at him, asking him questions and pointing strange devices at him (something he very much didn’t approve of).

He was reluctant to talk about the fact that he thought he was still in a dream, but they caught on quickly and started to ask questions about what he thought had happened.

“What exactly had happened to him in the first place?” Reed mused out loud (probably for the hundredth time, since he had been doing so ever since Steve had passed out and not woken up, according to Bruce).

“Some magical hodgepodge, what do I know, do I look like I’m a reliable resource when it comes to magic?” Tony hissed.

“Tony, will you calm down?” Bruce requested.

“Calm down?” Tony shouted. “HE THOUGHT I WAS DEAD!”

“And shouting is going to help that?” Bruce asked, unimpressed, raising a challenging eyebrow. “If you’re going to continue this, you’re really going to end up dead.”

“I got it, I got it,” Tony replied, lifting his arms in a soothing gesture.

* * *

 

In the end, they decided that whatever it had been that Steve had been affected with, it had already vanished, leaving only the smallest of traces. The tests that hey had done while Steve had been unconscious didn’t help, either. They kept on discussing what it could have been, why he had been out of it for ten days, and why he had acquired all these new memories, but Steve wasn’t really listening. He was still sure that he would eventually wake up in his bed, alone, everybody long dead and gone. He also knew that it wouldn’t be too wise to voice that opinion.

Tony’s eyes strayed over to him repeatedly, checking on him. Still the same old Tony, always looking out for him. Steve tried to smile at him to assure he was doing well, but his smile felt a little wobbly. Tony wrinkled his brows and came over to him.

“Come on, you big lug,” he said to Steve. “Let’s get you somewhere where you can rest.”

“I don’t need rest, Tony,” Steve answered, “but a little quiet would be nice. Can you stay with me?”

Tony looked at him for a moment, considering.

“Sure,” he eventually said, and led Steve away to the library, leaving the other scientist bickering with each other.

* * *

 

Steve looked around in the library. He remembered the place now. He had been living here with the other Avengers, a long time ago, when times were happier. When Tony was alive.

“You know, Tony,” he started, surprising himself, “I’ve always been a coward.”

“Steve, whatever you are, you are NO coward,” Tony interrupted, shaking his head.

“Oh Tony,” Steve laughed quietly, looking down at his hands. So much blood. So many regrets. “You have no idea how much of a coward I am. I love you so much, and I never dared to tell you.”

He looked over to Tony, who looked positively shell-shocked.

“I… _Steve_ ,” Tony stuttered.

“I’m sorry to drop this bomb on you so suddenly, but I had to tell you. I won’t waste another chance,” Steve added.

“Steve, you…” Tony shook his head, lapsing into silence.

“I’m just as much a coward as you,” Tony finally confessed quietly, staring at the floor. “I had promised myself I’d never tell you.”

He looked up.

“I love you, Steve.”

Steve smiled at him.

This was what he had been wishing for. Every waking minute of every single day of this hell of pain and regret. Just one drop of water in the endless desert. It was enough to make the flowers hidden in the sand bloom.

He reached out to Tony and pulled him closer.

“Thank you,” he whispered, letting their foreheads touch. “Thank you.”

Then Tony was kissing him.

It was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

* * *

 

Steve woke with a start, disoriented. He blinked a few times, trying to get his eyes used to the darkness. Where was he?

“Not a dream, Steve,” came a sleepy voice next to him.

Steve turned around. A very naked, delightfully ruffled Tony was lying next to him in bed, looking up at him with dark, worried eyes. Unconsciously, Steve reached out, needing to get confirmation by touch.

For once, he didn’t reach into empty space.

Tony was still there, warm and alive, shivering a little under Steve’s touch. Unable to resist the temptation of so much naked skin, of so much _Tony_ , Steve started kissing Tony’s shoulder.

Oh, _heaven_.

Placing careful kisses over every square inch of skin he possibly could reach, Steve slowly wandered down to Tony’s back and then lazily travelled even lower.

Just when Tony made a particularly pleasurable sound, the emergency alarm went off.

“Fuck,” Tony cursed, immediately in fight mode. He got up from the bed, heading for the door, and Steve followed him without thinking.

“Steve, you shouldn’t,” Tony said, turning around and gently trying to make him get back to bed.

“I’m coming with you,” Steve insisted, refusing to be budged. They stared each other down for a few seconds.

Then Tony sighed and turned around to get suited up.

*

It was a particularly awful fight, and just about everything that _could_ go wrong went wrong. A few Avengers were already out of commission when it suddenly hit Steve.

This had been the fight where Tony died.

He hesitated for a moment, reality and dream intermingling, trying to get his head in the game. What was real and what was imagined?

But then the moment of insecurity passed, and he started running.

* * *

 

It had been a matter of seconds. So, so close. Too close, almost.

But this time, he had managed it.

He had managed to drag Tony away with little more than a few bruises and a broken arm.

“You fucking dumb-ass!” Steve cursed. “You almost died!”

“I knew you would save me,” Tony countered proudly, letting a medic mend his arm without interfering for once.

Steve was silent for a second, looking into Tony’s hopeful eyes. He never wanted to betray this trust. But it had already been betrayed.

“One day, I won’t be there, Tony,” Steve reminded him.

“I thought you loved me?” Tony said with a grin, ignoring Steve’s admonitions, as usual.

“That I do,” Steve assured him regardless.

“Then you’ll be there,” Tony said with conviction.

“You are completely ridiculous,” Steve said, hope blooming in his heart. “And completely amazing.”

“For you, Steve,” Tony smiled up at him. “Always for you.”

Had Steve said the first kiss was the best thing that had ever happened to him?

He had been wrong.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [tumblr](http://kurowrites.tumblr.com).
> 
> A/N: Obviously Steve still needs some time to be convinced that this is not at dream, but then they’re going to be all grossly couple-y and domestic. And Steve will obviously not live forever. Also, before you ask, it was a fox who made Steve see an illusion. Because I’m a sucker for Japanese folklore and foxes are totally awesome.


End file.
